Software-defined networking (SDN) often uses network controllers to configure logical networks throughout a datacenter. As SDN becomes more prevalent and datacenters cater to more and more tenants, controllers are expected to perform more operations. For example, a network controller may manage a plurality of managed forwarding elements (MFEs) (e.g., running on host machines, which are physical computing devices that support execution of virtual machines (VMs) or other virtualized computing instances) that implement one or more logical networks. The MFEs may implement various logical entities (e.g., logical routers, logical switches, etc.) of each logical network. A particular logical entity may be implemented on a subset of the MFEs managed by the controller. The controller may receive an update (e.g., change to the desired state) of the particular logical entity. Accordingly, the controller may need to determine the subset of MFEs that implement the logical entity (i.e., the span of the logical entity) to send the update so the logical entity can be updated.